


deliver us unto each other

by strictlybecca



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Crisis of Faith, Family Bonding, Fluff, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, something shaped like forgiveness for booker, we were not meant to be alone: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:20:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25566568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strictlybecca/pseuds/strictlybecca
Summary: Five prayers Nicky makes on his own, plus one with company.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 112
Kudos: 603





	deliver us unto each other

**Author's Note:**

  * For [modernnature](https://archiveofourown.org/users/modernnature/gifts).



> dedicated to jessie, my ride or die 
> 
> this fic was a beast to write, but we made it. i wish i could share every truly ridiculous and obsessive google search i made during the writing of this fic, but i'll leave you with the one that sounds like a set up to a bad joke: "what did they call sunburn in the 11th century"
> 
> (answer: it doesn't fucking matter because they're IMMORTAL and they FUCKING HEAL kasl;djfkasdfa okay onto the fic)
> 
> [ps. if you're on a desktop, you can hover for translations! otherwise you can find them in the end notes.]

**one.**

Nicolo cannot remember the last time he was alone. 

He has been shoulder to shoulder with soldiers for years now, no peace from the taste and smell of sweat and blood and piss, constant as the caravan trudges over the mountains of Turkey through deepest winter. They stop only for supplies that are scarce and for battles that Nicolo barely survives. One in five men die at Antioch and Nicolo can only imagine it is God’s will that gets him to Jerusalem - but he learns soon that perhaps it is not a blessing God intends to bestow, but a condemnation. 

It is summer when they reach Jerusalem; hardier, hungry, and glorified in their suffering, or so Nicolo is told.

The siege is what Nicolo imagines hell to be. There is a constant burning heaviness in the air and in his lungs, the heat an impossibility through the weight of his armor and the sounds - Almighty Father, the _sounds._

Nicolo is not alone and his ears ring with the proof: the screams of the dying, the wounded, the terrified. Boys and men weeping in supplication, seeking the sacred in their demise on the battlefield. For years Nicolo has been cutting his way through Saracens at the behest of God, destroying the 'vile race' as he has been commanded by the Lord. He has been a murderer in the name of Christ for years now and he cannot see a way through, but he faithfully walks the path he has been given. 

Every crossbow bolt flies on a prayer, every man he cuts down is an act of worship, a way of pleading with a God he loves and does not know. He kills in His name and it is all he can do to stagger past the bodies of his brothers and the monsters they are fighting and try not to wonder at the way they all bleed the same.

Nicolo is never alone, not even to sleep. The siege rages on around him and the others who have not yet entered into everlasting life, but at least here at camp it is dark and the sounds of battle at the wall are a distant roar.

“Sleep here,” a Norman soldier says in poor Ligurian, but Nicolo nods in understanding. He takes a blanket and settles in on the hard, dirt packed floor of the tent. Here, he is surrounded by his brothers in arms, but he speaks to none of them and not one of them even try to meet his eyes.

 _Almighty Father,_ Nicolo thinks into the dark, _the redeemer, our salvation, I beseech thee. Give me the strength to go forward in the knowledge that I work in service of you, to go forward_ \- he lets out a shuddering breath, as he thinks of days stretched out into years of endless blood and battle - _with faith, to glorify your holy name._ There is only silence in Nicolo’s mind as he waits, hopes, prays for a sign. 

A part of him knows none will come, not for him.

Nicolo is never alone but the loneliness of his secret clutched tight to his chest makes it so. He has fought desire for years, knowing that what burns in him makes him sick, makes him wrong. To desire another man, not just to bed but to _love_ , to want what has been condemned by the Church... But God has kept him alive through these years so far - Nicolo has to believe in a purpose beyond himself, in a God that has not abandoned him. Nicolo’s fear is a hand outstretched, a plea for understanding, for mercy. _I am unworthy in your sight,_ Nicolo wants to shout, _please, most merciful God, forgive me, forgive the helplessness of the weak. I want to be perfect in your sight._

Nicolo aches to be close to the sacred, to find peace in devotion, but he can feel the shame eat at him. He can feel the worms that are his sins burrow deeper inside him, keeping him earthly and profane and wrong. Each night he returns to his bed he prays, hoping that God will reveal His plan for him soon, that there will be some answer for the roiling mass of shame, for the perpetual taste of ash in his mouth and the feel of blood on his hands.

God is quiet. Nicolo feels alone.

**two.**

When Nicolo lays dying for the first time, he does not pray alone. 

The ground is hot against his back, the sandy dirt heated by the harsh and unforgiving afternoon sun. There is the sharp clang of swords like church bells and the grit of dirt under his fingernails and the sour metal taste of blood in his mouth as he strains to hear. _“Ashadu an la ilaha ila allah-”_ he hears the hoarse, fading voice beside him whisper, _“-wa ashadu anna muhammadan rasul-ullah.”_ He does not know the words but the cadence is familiar, even choked out in the dying murmur of the man who killed him. Who he killed. 

A prayer. Nicolo wonders to which false god he prays. Does he imagine a response? Does he find comfort in a pale shadow of something truly holy?

But it does not matter because Nicolo is also dying - he knows it. The infidel’s scimitar carved through his body mercilessly, just as Nicolo’s own sword lashed out in response. They had been so perfectly matched, their movements so fluid that Nicolo would have likened it to dancing before calling it fighting. There had even been a moment so removed from time and place, when their weapons had sung sweetly as they brushed past one another - but it had ended in a flash, with Nicolo’s sword buried in the man and his own blood pouring from his side.

As he waits for death, Nicolo does not anticipate the relief that washes over him in a flood, though the fear is expected. Does Heaven await him? The fear of losing his life, losing the hope for the imagined future he would - he _could_ \- have had past the thoughts of war and battle - it eats at him, even as he feels his body grow weaker. Surviving past Jerusalem had always been a fraught and unlikely lie he had allowed himself. But now, to charge Heaven’s gates, weighed down by the guilt and shame and fear and loathing that he carries? He is unsure. 

But there is relief too - an ending to all of this, to the sand and sun and constant sound of dying. If God calls him, then he will go - _but please, not to Hell._

 _“O Lord God,”_ Nicolo gasps out, unsure if he is hoping to catch the attention of a roving cleric, one who could administer last rites, or if he hopes perhaps that God will hear him over the din of death around him. If he can confess, if he can convince God that he has only ever wanted to be good and righteous and loved - _“Against thee, O God, have I sinned. To thee I make my confession, and beg forgiveness.”_ Nicolo’s voice breaks, his eyes sting with tears. _“Turn thy face again, O Lord, please, forgive me and my sins.”_ He has felt so far from God’s love for so long. He does not want to go into the deep darkness that bids him without the assurance that he has been heard - but that is how it ends. 

When Nicolo wakes after death for the first time, it is not to choirs of angels or to the face of his beloved mother, but to the familiar sound of layered, urgent voices - battlefield commands called, distant shouts for help, the intoning of last rites. 

This is the battle he had left, the spot where he had died. He is frozen, staring up now at a sunset streaked sky, the sounds of that morning’s skirmish dimmed by the coming night that had beckoned soldiers to bed, only for the battle to begin anew at dawn. Death had come for him, he was _sure_ of it - how had he… how had this come to pass? Was he truly alive? Or was - was this Hell? Some sort of endless battle that he would be trapped in for all of eternity, as a punishment for his sins. In his heart of hearts, Nicolo knows he has not reached Heaven, knows now that God had not heard him - or perhaps had not listened. 

Perhaps, Nicolo despairs, this is all there will ever be. He tries to breathe around the growing chasm in his chest and he cannot. Surely he cannot have been so bad a man as to deserve this? He chokes, his eyes burning as he turns his face into the ground, unable to bear the weight of guilt and shame a moment longer. _O God,_ Nicolo weeps silently, gasping into the dirt beneath his cheek, all mottled snot and tears and blood, _O God, please, God who tells the number of the stars, and calls them all by their names: please. Have you forsaken me? Have my sinful thoughts pushed you so far away from me that I will never again know peace?_

And then he hears a deep, rasping gasp near him. He whips his head around to see the man he killed jerk to life, his chest heaving, his eyes flickering across all the details Nicolo is still unable to believe. Nicolo watches him, stunned by the impossibility. Is it possible that he has not entered Hell alone? Or, Nicolo thinks, with growing hope - perhaps God has given him another chance? He had let the Saracen cut him down first last time - but perhaps this is proof of God’s trust in him, His blessing for Nicolo’s faith.

He turns onto his belly, hands scrabbling at the ground, each and every functioning limb complaining of dull aches and the phantom pain of what should have been blistering burns across his skin after hours laying out in the Jerusalem sun. There are still the bodies of the dead scattered around him but he can see the distant figures of clerics collecting them for anointing and proper burial. Something in him goes cold - had they seen him during death? What would they think to see him now - without a scratch? Would he be called a monster, a demon? No matter - the longer he waits, the harder he listens, the more he is convinced that this is precisely the battle he had died in, that God returned him to earth to succeed where he had once failed. He must not fail again.

He lunges for the man, who has barely managed to sit up before Nicolo thrusts his dagger up into his chest. He hopes that surprise is enough to win him the day, knowing as he does that the man was truly his match in battle. His only hope for victory is speed - but even then, he knows in a moment it will not be enough. The man growls his fury, blood already dripping from his mouth, but Nicolo feels the precise heartbeat when something sharp pierces his belly, the agony drawn out by the length of the blade.

The man trembles and dies in his arms as Nicolo bleeds out. Nicolo feels the stillness of his death with his own hands. Will this be enough, will he be enough? - Nicolo wonders as it all fades to black.

But the dark does not last long as Nicolo opens his eyes upon the searing, still blue-black of the night sky, now spotted with stars. “No, no,” he gasps as he struggles to find breath again. “Not again, not-” 

A knife is plunged into his back and he screams, falling away, scrambling to escape. His hands land on a rock and he lifts it with both palms, swinging blindly, furiously. He feels it smash into the man’s face, the sound of skull cracking beneath his hands an echoing sound on the almost-still battlefield. Nicolo bares his teeth as he tries to breathe around the flood of pain that begins to drag him down mercilessly to darkness again. He presses his hands to his face, feeling the blood and spit smeared across his lips even as the numbness descends. _“Why Lord,”_ he wheezes, slumping over his knees, knowing he will not rise again. _“What can I give thee? What do what you want of me?”_ His breath comes shorter now. _“How can I please thee?”_ And then the darkness beckons again.

But the dark does not remain.

And so they kill each other again and again in the hours that follow - and again and again they wake to each other’s gazes, their fury and confusion and terror borne out by trembling hands. Nicolo is sure he is losing his mind because with each time that he fulfills what God _must_ be asking him to do, he becomes less and less sure of his path. 

“This cannot go on forever,” he says to the man, who he knows will not understand. They are panting for breath, mere feet from one another, the gash across the man’s neck healing steadily as Nicolo’s broken leg slowly weaves back together. “If we both cannot die, then God cannot want me to murder you.” The man’s dark eyes follow Nicolo’s face, his lips, as if trying to comprehend. Nicolo stares back, unable to look away. He feels as if he has memorized the way this man’s face looks in fury, in the throes of death, but he still is mesmerized by the intensity of his stare, and confused by the way he feels seen in a way he never has before.

“Yurid allah minaa 'an naeisha,” the man says, his voice unexpectedly soft, his accent lilting over words Nicolo finds impossible to parse. His tone is meaningful, syllables weighty in ways that Nicolo wishes he understood - a desire that hours ago he would have never fathomed. The statement does not sound like a challenge, but like a declaration, a promise. Nicolo wonders at what he could say with such certainty, and realizes that if God will not let either of them die, then there is only one truth.

“God wants us to live,” Nicolo says firmly. “Both of us.” And if God does not want him to murder and if God does not want to send him to Hell, then there is more in store for both of them. There is a plan, one that does not end in violence and blood, but in purpose and faith.

God has chosen Nicolo for whatever this will become. _God does not want him to die._ Nicolo could chant those words to himself til the end of time and not tire of them. For his shame and his sins, God does not want him to die. There is work to do in His name and God wants Nicolo to do it. And he does not want him to do it alone.

“How do we begin?” Nicolo asks and it is partly directed at God, but it is also for the man standing before him. How can they move past any of the harm they have both wrought? How do they begin, together?

The answer comes not in blood, but in trust. The man stretches a hand down to Nicolo, letting his other rest against his chest. “Yusuf,” he says clearly, slowly. He taps his chest again and repeats, “Yusuf.”

Nicolo nods, takes Yusuf’s hand in his and levers himself up. “Nicolo,” he returns. “Well met, Yusuf,” he says, nodding his head in an approximation of a bow.

Yusuf’s face lights up and Nicolo’s entire chest seizes up at the sight. _He is beautiful,_ Nicolo thinks in despair. _He is beautiful and he cannot die and God has tied me to him._

It is a thought that Nicolo must turn over in his head many times, over many evenings, before there is a spark of hope that flickers to life inside of him. _God gave me him,_ Nicolo thinks, _and gave me to him._ It is possible, Nicolo considers, that God’s love has been closer than he has realized all along.

**three.**

“Here beloved,” Yusuf murmurs, pressing the edge of something to his lips, and Nicolo, eyes still crusted shut with dirt and blood, opens his mouth blindly. The water is likely stale and muddied, pulled as it is from the one pump the small Welsh village has, but to Nicolo it is sweet and cold and the best thing he has possibly ever tasted. He drinks eagerly, eyes closed, still navigating the world solely through touch and taste and sound and the trust that Yusuf will keep him from coming to harm. 

“Careful tesoro,” Yusuf warns gently, tilting the bowl away from Nicolo’s lips to let him swallow. “Come, let me clean your face.” Nicolo reluctantly shifts to sit up but Yusuf’s warm, firm hand settles on his chest and presses him back into the mattress, keeping his head settled in Yusuf’s lap. “No, no, do not move, my love. Let me.” Yusuf’s other hand brushes Nicolo’s hair off his forehead, before resting there a moment, a cool palm against Nicolo’s dirty face. A small part of him wants to insist that Yusuf does not need to take care of him like this, but it is crushed by the wave of relief that comes moments later when the hand on his chest disappears and is replaced with a soft damp cloth that slips across his face, cautiously cleaning over his eyelashes and wiping the corners of his mouth. Nicolo imagines he can feel Yusuf’s heartbeat in the fingertips that trace the line of his nose, the bow of his lips.

Nicolo has never felt so safe before. 

Though he is tempted to say he _found_ Yusuf and _found_ love where he least expected it to be, he knows that instead their love has been _built_. To be strong, to be steady, to be the constant that Nicolo knows he can rely on; their love has been a communal act, a rite of communion, a decision made over and over again. 

They wake many nights together, caught in alternating and conflicting cycles of grief and terror. Their long years together have meant many battles and many deaths. The comfort Nicolo takes from being in Yusuf’s arms each time he starts awake - well, he cannot find the words. Not aloud, at least. He’s not sure he will ever be able to put into speech the gratitude he feels for Yusuf’s presence in his life, for his tender heart and fierce strength, for the love they have labored over - together.

The dreams still come, though Nicolo knows now - with the weight of years and endless time stretched out before and beyond him - that the call for murder will always come from the mouths of men and not from His lips. Nicolo fought and died with blood on his hands not because God willed it, but because war is inevitable when powerful men wield holiness as a weapon. 

“War is inevitable,” Yusuf would interject, “because humanity innovates endlessly towards violence.” 

But Nicolo disagrees. Their love is proof - finding each other, killing each other, loving each other; it is all proof of God’s will, God’s love. Yusuf’s arms wrapping around him in the night, every morning Yusuf pressing cups of tea into his warm hands, the tremble in Yusuf’s lips as their bodies move as one, sharing breath with Yusuf after every kiss - was that not worship? What else could that be, if not sacred?

He does not tell Yusuf, but he prays his gratitude nearly every night. _O Lord God,_ Nicolo sings joyfully, silently into the dark, Yusuf’s lips pressed to the top of his spine, their limbs so intertwined he cannot tell where he begins and Yusuf ends. _I confess with Thanksgiving that you have blessed me beyond all wisdom and devotion with this one I call my own, my beloved, my heart. How perfectly you have created him,_ he marvels, pressing soft kisses to the fingers Yusuf has tangled with his own, _how beautiful a creature you have carved with your own hands. Thank you,_ he prays, _thank you, thank you._

-

“Here beloved,” Joe calls, his hand hovering under a spoon he’s offering up to Nicky from across the room. “Taste and tell me what’s missing.” Nicky trots over, heedless of his lack of shirt coming straight out of the shower but too hungry not to take a bite of whatever delicious smelling thing Joe has been cooking for the last forty five minutes.

“Mmm,” Nicky says as he lets Joe feed him. “Squisito. Non aggiungere nulla.” It is spicy, whatever it is, a thick red sauce, sweet with heat that lights up Nicky’s whole mouth. “Have I ever mentioned how glad I am that you can cook?”

“I think at least once in the past millennium,” Joe murmurs, smirking at him before lifting his hand to wipe away a nonexistent remnant of sauce from Nicky’s mouth. Nicky purses his lips, pressing a noisy kiss to Joe’s thumb and delights at the way Joe’s grin lights up his face. His love draws him closer, tossing his spoon back into the bubbling sauce, the hand on his face shifting to cup Nicky’s cheek. “Speaking of exquisite,” Joe adds while eyeing his naked chest meaningfully, his free hand settling proprietarily at Nicky’s hip, and Nicky can only laugh.

“You may be very charming,” he admits, letting himself be tugged into Joe’s embrace, “But unfortunately I am hungrier for your food than anything else at the moment.” Joe makes a noise of disgust but makes no move to push him away.

“Fine darling,” he allows, all faux offense and dark, dancing eyes. “I will feed you dinner, but then-” Joe pauses to bite gently at Nicky’s jawline, pressing _one-two-three_ kisses there after in quick succession. “Then, you are _mine_.” 

Nicky rolls his eyes. “Like I have ever been anything else,” he says with a smirk, before gently, comfortingly, patting Joe on the ass and then disappearing back into their bedroom in order to dress for dinner. (They would never make it through the meal if he didn’t find a shirt.)

It is later - _much_ later - when sleep tugs at them finally: after they have laughed themselves hoarse over Joe’s multi-national, deeply spicy version of a sofrito, after they cleared the table in tandem and washed their dishes shoulder to shoulder, after they traded kisses between still stinging lips, after they fell into bed with worshipful hands and mouths, after Joe has robbed Nicky of all his senses and Nicky has stolen all of Joe’s pretty words. 

_God, thank you,_ Nicky prays into the dark, unable to keep himself from mouthing the words into Joe’s warm shoulder. “Thank you,” he breathes, “thank you, thank you.”

Joe makes an enquiring noise, sounding more asleep than awake and Nicky breathes in the scent of sweat and sex and cooked onions. He figures they should probably remember to go brush their teeth before they pass out.

“Just thanking God for you,” he murmurs, feeling no need to be anything but honest. He wishes he could offer up better poetry for the man beside him, wishes he could tell him that their love is God’s greatest work, that Nicky has been made fit for Joe’s love by God’s own hands. There’s a heartbeat of silence and then Joe is shifting in his arms, bringing Nicky’s hand to his lips and pressing soft, sleepy kisses there.

“Give Him my gratitude as well,” he whispers into the delicate skin between Nicky’s knuckles. “Tell Him,” he breathes, “that He didn’t _have_ to make the love of my life the most beautiful man in existence, alhamdu-lillah, but that I very much appreciate it and-”

“Tell Him yourself!” Nicky snorts, trying to tug his hand away from Joe’s grip but unsurprisingly, his love refuses to relinquish it. He happily submits to the tender, loving care of the greatest man he has ever known.

“You have that direct line to Him though, mio piccolo prete.” Joe holds his hand up like a phone to his ear, wiggling his eyebrows ludicrously. Nicky pushes his ridiculous face away with his palm, sputtering and laughing even as Joe intones into his hand in an entirely teasing voice, “Sì, Allah, _mmhmm,_ of course, I’ll tell him right away-” And, of course, Joe smothers Nicky’s palm with kisses before claiming it for his own as well, tucking both of Nicky’s hands between his, tangling their fingers in a hold that Nicky has no desire to escape.

They pass the night that way, laughing and sharing in the communion of their love, their hands clasped together - as if in prayer.

**four.**

The beach of Peleliu was probably beautiful hundreds of years ago, Nicky supposes. He’d never seen it despite his many years, but he could imagine crystalline blue water and serene shores. A sunset, over rustling trees in a gentle wind. A paradise, of sorts. 

Currently, it is on fire, covered with the bodies of dead Marines, all sprawled across the light sandy beach stained with ribbons of red. If Nicky squints, he can almost imagine the scene overlaid with fraught memories he thought he had banished - the base of the city wall at Jerusalem where the bodies piled up for days, the scores of men laid out in the fields at Antietam and Gettysburg.

As he propels himself forward with elbows and knees past corpses and the deafening cacophony of mortars and gunfire around him, he tries to quiet the voice in his mind that sounds suspiciously like Joe. It wonders at how war remains so much the same even as the ingenuity for new ways to commit violence seems to grow. At least it is not trench warfare, he points out to the Joe-voice in his mind - mostly because he cannot point out the same to the Joe at his side. They are clawing their way through a sea of bleeding young men screaming for mercy and their mothers out in the sand of Peleliu Beach, easy targets as they roll over the sides of the amphibious Amtracs, to try and flee the beach with little to no cover and next to no hope.

Nicky does not want to be here. This war across the world has stretched on for too many years. Though he and Andy and Booker and Joe shed uniforms and languages with ease as they navigate the many arenas of violence and espionage that each new conflict begs of them, Nicky is ready for this to be over. Surely, he thinks, this cannot be the way that humanity destroys itself - with smoke and gunfire and mortar. Millions are dead and still there seems to be no satiating the gaping, hungry maw that is the Second World War. He is furthermore enraged that he and Joe have found themselves in the midst of a battle in which human life is given so little consideration or value - _but_ if he and Joe want to find their way back to France, back to Andy, Booker, and the resistance, then they need an aircraft - and this tiny, insignificant island contains a vital, coveted airstrip.

“They’re going to blow up every fucking airplane!” Nicky screams, pissed that they are here, pissed that he has already seen the sweet, shy boy from the 1st Marine Division die by bullet right through the eye, pissed that he can’t use his fucking sword on anyone. “We will never get off this fucking island!”

“We will!” Joe shouts back, keeping his head low as he crawls steadily forward, letting his helmet act as a poor man’s shield, the only protection any of them have. “Keep moving!” It is nearly impossible to hear over the barrage of gunfire, but Nicky is attuned to Joe’s voice after hundreds of years of practice. He heeds the direction and hopes that Joe has a better plan than ‘steal a plane and run’ tucked into his back pocket.

There is so much crying out around them and Nicky curses every time his path to cover grows longer because a man has died in his way. To be confronted with such blatant mortality brings forth all of the guilt that Nicky so regularly buries - why him? Why Joe? Why do they get to live while all these children die in pain and terror around them? He hopes they know that there is peace beyond this madness, beyond the blood and darkness. 

There is a heart stoppingly close explosion that sends him scrambling in the sand, ears ringing. Fuck, this is miserable. He tries to keep pace with Joe and thinks they have almost made it when-

The dull, wet thud of a bullet hitting familiar and beloved flesh is a sound that Nicky would know in his sleep. All at once, Joe goes limp beside him and Nicky’s heart stops. He’s feverish with fear as he desperately curls his hand into the sleeve of Joe's uniform and tries to drag Joe's limp form with him - fuck, he was right, they’re not that far from the tree line, if he can just get a good hold of him - but Joe is not waking up.

It’s one bullet, he agonizes, why is it taking so long? Nicky’s blood goes cold, even as he’s screaming, “Cazzo, cazzo, Joe - Joe, destati, cazzo!” He cannot think - how long has it even been? Three seconds? Twenty? Should Joe be moving? _Dear God, please-_

“Get the fuck off the beach! Leave him!” Another soldier screams into his face and Nicky knows he is right. Joe will wake and follow. He knows the plan. He will wake up. He **will** wake up. Nicky cannot wait and die beside him and force Joe to make the same impossible choice. He presses on, snarling with each inch forward. 

“If you do not wake up,” Nicky threatens an absent Joe, his face pressed into the sand, his eyes burning from the sweat and dirt, “I will fucking murder you.” But he will not, he knows, even as he reaches small, sickly shrubbery, trees burnt to nothing but cracked trunks by heavy mortars. Instead he prays. _God,_ he calls, flinching at a mortar that lands too fucking close. _Shepherd of all your people, please, keep him safe under your shelter._ Nicky purposefully does not mention his own impossibly poor cover, but he is sure God sees that too. _He is too precious to me, too good in soul, too gentle at heart. Please do not take him from me. Not yet Lord, I am not yet strong enough to lose him._ It is not quite the same prayer every time when Joe slips away from him, but it is close. 

Joe finds Nicky an hour later huddled in a deep crater carved into the earth by a mortar shell. Nicky does not keep himself from tangling his hands into the sweat-and-blood-soaked collar of Joe's uniform, from pulling him close and murmuring senseless, furious things into his neck. Joe understands perfectly and caresses Nicky’s cheek, pressing a kiss there. “I know, I’m sorry habibi,” he apologizes as they kneel low, knees pressing into the sharp and shattered rock. “You did the right thing.” Nicky does not want to feel soothed by such words, but he is - and Joe knows it too, the utter bastard. 

“Now,” Joe murmurs, smiling wickedly and Nicky immediately feels both the urge to kiss Joe til he forgets his name and to punch him in the mouth for whatever it is he is about to say. “Let’s go steal a plane before the idiot Americans blow them all up.”

-

The prayer has not changed much since the eleventh century, Nicky admits. He has not had as much practice reciting it as say, the Lord’s Prayer, but even so - many deaths over hundreds of years means that there is a certain cadence when he asks God to return Joe to him.

_He is too sweet, too honest, too caring,_ Nicky cites, when Joe is killed by a runaway carriage in London, protecting two children from being run down. Seemingly half the world sees Joe startle back to life but fortunately a combination of mud, muck and Nicky’s cloak keeps the worst of Joe’s injuries from view. There had been no chance for Nicky to press his trembling hands to the fluttering pulse at Joe’s neck, but once they are safe behind closed doors, he lets himself breathe his relief into Joe’s mouth, lets Joe assure him that he is whole and real and alive. 

_He is too fierce, too brave, too valiant to be taken from this world,_ Nicky reminds God when Joe is killed in a skirmish fighting alongside the Shawnee as they resist violent settlers encroaching on their land. Joe comes back to life clutching his throat and gasping, but it is mere minutes before he and Nicky return to fighting off the greedy colonizers - though not before Nicky steals a kiss that leaves them both breathless and wanting. “Trouble,” Joe calls him fondly, following him back into the fray without hesitation. 

_He is too righteous, too noble, too honorable,_ Nicky begs as he drags Joe’s body away from the ditch that the Haitians have dug to keep the French from storming their fort. Nicky has to wait too many seconds before Joe is fully healed, but he is back and standing just in time to join the singing along the walls of Crête-à-Pierrot, a cry for freedom that feels holy in its truth. They hold each other close under a dark sky of stars and Nicky lets the fear of loss slip away on the breeze. 

Practice builds habit and muscle, but Nicky knows he will never let his body adjust to the flood of ice and terror that fills him when he sees Joe fall in a fight. What he allows to become rote is the prayer he makes each time, though his reasoning is not terribly strong, merely logical: it has worked every time so far. 

_Please not today. Please, not now. He is too loved,_ Nicky will ask, firmly - because that’s the whole of it, isn’t it? Nicky loves him too much to be without him. Nicky knows now that they are not meant to be apart, that he was not meant to be a Nicolo without his Yusuf, and though he has faith that God knows this he cannot help but prompt Him - just in case. Nicky hopes God can forgive him the impertinence of each petition, hopes that He knows it is the beauty of what He has created that drives Nicky to beg, that nothing proves God’s love to him the same way as the mere existence of the man he calls his own. 

And so he tells God honestly, _I am not ready to be without him;_ and he reminds Him, _You made him for me, I do not know how to live apart from him;_ and he points out, _I cannot see a way forward without him here with me_ \- the refrain echoes every time because Nicky has no secrets from God. He is comforted only by the knowledge that God in His infinite wisdom gave Joe to Nicky, knowing precisely the love that Nicky needed to be whole, that Nicky would find his way closer to God through the perfection that is Joe’s love for him. And he has - the marvel of a sunset, the beauty of a child’s smile, the valor of a people rising up - all of these things are more wondrous, more glorious to Nicky because Joe is beside him to witness them. God’s work in the world is more visible to Nicky each day he spends with Joe. 

And so each loss is cavernous, echoing and frightening in its enormity, in the possibility of no return. And each time when Joe returns, it is like the lights turn back on in Nicky’s mind. The windows and doors fling themselves open and there is life again in the little home that Joe has carved out in Nicky’s soul. “Like color coming back into the world,” Joe has murmured into Nicky’s lips, trying to describe the feeling back to him. “Like the crash of thunder as the skies break apart.” Nicky has laughed at every ridiculous metaphor Joe has thrown at him, but he loves them, basks in them like a cat in sunshine. 

“Every time I wake to see you,” Joe continues, his words more like breath as he lets his lips graze Nicky’s jaw, his throat. “I fall in love all over again.” If it were anyone else, Nicky would shush them, roll his eyes and groan at the sweetness, the impossibility - but it is Joe. His Yusuf. He watches Nicky with careful, quick dark eyes and Nicky cannot do anything but look back, vulnerable to all the things Joe makes him feel. “I remember every dream I’ve had of you, every mystery in your eyes, every time I thought I might die of wanting you-” Nicky lets a small smile escape at that. “I remember and I breathe again and I know,” Joe kisses him and Nicky feels like he’s drinking him in, drawing at something so deep in him that Nicky is dizzy with it. “I’ll love you always.” 

“Always,” Nicky echoes and kisses him, because he must, and because there is no fear left here, no sharp flood of terror and loss, no uncertainty beyond this moment. Just them, echoing their love back and forth, a kind of refrain that belongs to eternity. 

Like them. 

**five.**

The ride back to the safe house after escaping Merrick is fraught. 

The car smells of blood and ozone and gunpowder and they are all shifting uncomfortably as their wounds heal, tugging at skin and bone. They are also all studiously not looking at Andy’s wound. It is difficult because Andy is their sun. They gently revolve around her perpetually, she: an ancient constant, them: patient and awestruck and devoted always - but now they are struggling with a prospect none of them have considered, because how do you imagine the world without sun? So they are painfully, pointedly _not_ thinking about it and in order to do that, they are painfully, pointedly _not_ looking at her. Instead, their gazes all careen into one other before they dart away, also terribly unready for any conversation those looks might prompt - Joe cannot look at Booker without wanting to scream, Nicky cannot look at Joe without wanting to say something calming and utterly unhelpful, Nile cannot look at anyone as she sorts through what it means to kill so many by instinct alone. Nicky is… _God,_ Nicky is tired. He is tired and sad and just so, _so_ exhausted thinking of what lies ahead. 

Andy drives and Joe navigates, which just means he reminds her to use her turn signal because they are in Central London and not somewhere where driving is exclusively a bloodsport. Nicky leans forward a little from his spot in the middle seat to give some semblance of privacy to both Booker and Nile, each on the end, each with their faces pressed to the window, each so, so quiet. Nicky is glad when Joe sits back in his seat, head pressed to the head rest. It puts his ear in range and so Nicky presses a quiet kiss there before leaning his forehead against the shoulder of the seat. Joe reaches back and buries a hand in his hair rubbing gently, the touch precisely what Nicky needs. He wants to rest, but he knows the second he lets his eyes close he might never find the energy to exit the car ever again. 

They arrive and change quickly, falling into their usual rota of turns in the shower and room preferences. Booker, who always takes the room on the western-facing side of the house, does not unpack there, Nicky notices. He disappears and changes and then returns to the main floor of the house, his duffel still on his shoulder as he sits at the kitchen table and waits for the rest of them to finish. He stares only at his hands in his lap. Nicky wordlessly offers him a glass of water, which he takes with a hand that is trembling. Nicky wants to catch his fingers up in a tight grip, beg him to explain himself and then call him brother in quick succession. He does neither, but refills the glass when Booker drains it. 

Booker is their little brother and Nicky loves him unreasonably, without measure. They have always shared a love of words and beautiful things, of decadence in a way the others don’t quite understand. Nicky and Booker delight in snarking at one another endlessly, their conversations a tangle of Romance languages that they refuse to sort out for anyone listening. Booker does not shy away from a debate, is always eager to taunt Nicky about his “ridiculous love” (as Booker describes it) of Leopardi and regularly demands that Nicky speak to him in French so he can critique his accent. Joe yells at them when their “discussions” of philosophy and religion and history lead to them near tears, laughing and throwing shit at one another, knowing they will never agree, not in a thousand more years. Nicky loves him for it. 

And with all of that, with all of that adoration packed into two hundred years, still Joe and Booker are even closer. 

They go to watch football games Nicky doesn’t care about in bars that Nicky’s never seen. They play chess with a battered set that appears from nowhere and that Nicky still can’t tell which one it belongs to. They have the same taste in music - to a point - and Nicky gets lost in their constant battles over the influences of the influences of the influences of such-and-such a trumpet player. They make each other laugh like no other: the foolish, joyful laughter of men much younger than them, one wheezing while the other holds him up. The jokes are nonsense when repeated, relying on layers of language and inside knowledge and Nicky is happy to leave them to it, to pretend to roll his eyes on cue to send them back into their sputtering and snickering. 

It is this love of a little brother that they are losing and Nicky is worried that it will break them all. 

They arrive at the bar with little discussion and after a short car ride, Nicky again taking the center seat and allowing himself to press his shoulder to Booker’s, torturing them both, he’s sure, with the thought that this will be the last touch of its kind for many years. Andy orders them all a round and delivers them and Booker watches them with steady eyes before nodding and stepping out the back of the bar, giving them privacy. 

“Two hundred,” Joe snaps, the second Booker is gone. “I can’t look at him. I don’t trust him. He fucked everything up, he betrayed us and-” Andy holds up her hand. 

“I agree he needs to be punished,” she says simply. “There need to be consequences.” 

“Two hundred _what_?” Nile interrupts. “Are we talking about _years_? We’re considering leaving him behind for two hundred years? How is that fair punishment? How is that anything but cruel?” 

“He is a traitor, Nile,” Joe gets out, his voice a tight rope that Nicky is debating how to cross. This type of anger is poison, Nicky knows. It is not just fury, but also shame and guilt and so instead of slicing clean to the surface, painful and raw but able to heal - it festers. He can read the twist of Joe's mouth as easily as any text - Joe wants to tear Booker apart, believes him treasonous - the worst thing a person can be in life to one such as Joe, who would rather take a thousand lashes than see someone he loves inconvenienced. But also he knows the weight of Booker’s words in the lab hang heavily on them both. 

What was grief to him, a man whose love greeted him every day with a sweet kiss and a reminder of how beloved and cherished he was? What was loss, when Nicky lived in utter security that Joe would be by his side til the end of time? What did they ignore, in letting Booker wallow, his pain so foreign to them in some ways that they did not know how to cross the chasm it built? He had been like a wounded dog, Nicky thinks, its howls too painful to bear some days, snapping and snarling at them to keep their distance on the worst of them - and they did. 

“He apologized,” Nile says stubbornly, and Nicky feels a corner of his mouth quirk. 

“They tortured Nicky and Joe,” Andy points out calmly. “They would have tortured us all, kept us in cages for years, perhaps forever. We likely would never have seen one another ever again.” Nicky does not think of the pain of their hours strapped to tables. He does not. Now is not the time. 

“Do we think that was his intent?” Nicky speaks up finally, and everyone turns to him. “Does his intent matter? Does it change the sentence we deliver?” He thinks it is important they spoke aloud what they all know - that this is a sentence, a condemnation. This punishment, whatever it will be, will damn Booker to never see Andy again, to lose what little human connection he has to the modern world. Whatever decision they make will carry weight. 

“I think he saw an endless sea before him, before us all, and couldn’t stand it,” Andy says, staring out at Booker, staring out at the Thames. 

“He didn’t think Andy would die,” Nile pointed out. "He had no reason to think any of us could die." 

“He didn’t think, period,” Joe snaps. “He was a selfish idiot, too caught up in his agony to even consider the rest of us for a single moment.” Joe opens his mouth to say more but chooses instead to take a long sip of his beer. 

They decide on a hundred years. 

It is not what any of them want, but it is the only thing they can settle on. He does not say goodbye to Booker, does not hug him one last time. He regrets it even as he feels the sour twist of hurt in his stomach, the ache of Booker’s lies and deception. He is not ready to forgive, but he is terrified to lose Booker forever. A hundred years, Nicky repeats to himself. Not forever - but here, standing at minute one of fifty two million, it might as well be. 

They drive home and Nicky doesn’t have to sit in the middle seat this time. He can stare out his own window, rest his forehead against the glass and close his eyes. None of them speak, though Nicky prays. 

_Please God, let him find some peace in this ceaselessly changing world. Let there be a place for him to rest,_ he pleads. _Protect him, so that he may walk this path without stumbling, wherever he goes._ Nicky lets out a shuddering breath. _Do not let him be alone._

The silence of the car follows them through the front door and up to each of their rooms. Nicky and Joe prepare for bed without speaking, though their hands clutch at one another as they brush past each other to fetch sleep pants and toothbrushes. When Nicky finishes and moves back into the bedroom, he finds Joe seated on the side of the bed, staring into space. 

“A hundred years? Was it right?” Joe asks softly. As always, Nicky can hear every question Joe is not saying aloud: What if someone finds him? What if he disappears and we can’t find him? What if he dies permanently and we don’t know? Will he change at all? Will he grow? Will he find happiness? Will he hate us? 

Does he hate us now? 

Even in this pale, quiet version of his beloved, Nicky can see the fury but the layers are too complicated to pull apart. Joe is like glass the moment before it shatters. All along his edges, Nicky can see the spiderweb cracks appearing in his veneer. “I am so angry at him, Nicolo,” Joe adds quietly, his voice wavering. “And I am so guilty at what we could not see in him.” 

“We loved him, cuore mio. We will always love him.” Nicky says, and it is reassurance for both of them to hear, but it does not erase what love could not do.

“But it wasn’t enough to keep him from doing this to us, from wanting death more than another moment with us,” Joe sighs raggedly, reaching out a hand to Nicky who takes it immediately, settling in beside Joe and wrapping his arms around him. “We didn’t love him enough.” Joe’s eyes are wet, but he does not allow himself to cry, even as he presses his face into Nicky’s neck, his breath unsteady against Nicky’s throat. 

“I think you know,” Nicky begins slowly, “that Book would be the first to tell you to shut the fuck up,” Nicky says quietly. “You know he would.” Joe laughs wetly and agrees. Booker’s grief had been his guiding star for over two hundred years. Even the love of a brother would not be enough to heal such a thing. 

Nicky releases a long breath and says what he has been thinking since the moment they walked away from Booker on the beach. “We will keep an eye on him. We will keep him safe from afar. And then, when we can’t stand it anymore, we will go get him and apologize for being away so long.” It flies in the face of the decision they made, of the anger and hurt still in Nicky’s heart, of Joe’s rage at his betrayal - but Nicky knows they will find forgiveness in the end. Joe’s heart is too big and the world too small for them to be without their little brother. 

Joe’s breath is evening out and Nicky wonders if Joe will be upset with Nicky’s lack of backbone, but his hands are firm as they wrap up Nicky in as firm an embrace as Nicky has him in. “Okay, beloved,” Joe murmurs. “I trust your heart.” They fall asleep that night as intertwined as always and Nicky is grateful that there are some constants even now. 

Nicky wakes far, far too early. The sky is barely lit and there are chirping songbirds - five in the morning, perhaps? Nicky wills his mind back to sleep even as his bladder whines and the swirl of hurt and worry in his chest float to the top of his mental notice board. He slips out of Joe’s arms, sliding his pillow between them as a replacement, just like Joe wraps the comforter around Nicky on the mornings he wakes to perform salat al-fajr, before using the bathroom and then heading downstairs into the quiet kitchen. He knows he will not fall back asleep, and so he prepares himself a cup of tea and fetches his laptop. He might as well cross something off a to-do list. 

He is not alone for very long though, as he hears a door creak and light but even footsteps on the stairs. Nile, he is sure. She appears in the doorway, surprised to see him awake, but she doesn’t mention it. She does not look like she has slept. She starts a pot of coffee, which shows she understands how this family functions. She watches him as he taps away on his laptop. He watches her back, peering at her over the top of his screen periodically. He has more than nine hundred years of practice waiting on someone’s confession, so he is not particularly surprised when she breaks. 

“I’m going to email him,” Nile says firmly, crossing her arms across her chest. “To keep a connection. Or call him, I don’t know. But I’m not going to let a hundred years go by without-” 

Nicky holds up a hand to stop her and sees her expression turn fretful, as if she is worried about his response. He turns his computer so she can see that he is composing an email to _booker@protonmail.com_ , clearly a work in progress. He watches her expression lighten in the early morning sun pouring in from the tall windows of the kitchen. He shrugs and lets a small smile escape. 

“I will send it in perhaps a few weeks,” Nicky says thoughtfully, turning his screen back and sending it to sleep. “To give myself time to think through my words. He is not forgiven,” he says, and it comes out a little like a warning to Nile, who nods promptly. 

“But he will be,” Nile says with certainty, before turning back to the coffee, not waiting for Nicky’s response. Which, he supposes, is fair, because she is right. He will be. 

**\+ 1**

Nicky is caught admiring Nile’s cross. It is a pretty thing, gold and delicate, though he knows it must be strong to have survived Afghanistan and all the nonsense with Copley and Merrick. He gives it a measured glance and then lets his gaze level gently on her face. She has - of course - seen him looking and stares right back; he almost smiles, charmed. She has the weighted gaze of someone much older, of one of them, already. He wants to tell her that she’ll fit right in with eyes like that, that bore through him, searching centuries deep, but he decides he does not know if she wants to hear it yet. She has been holding herself apart from them - not in any big way, but enough that Nicky finds himself making her tea for no reason or catching her eye when she thinks no one is watching her. 

“Nicolo,” Joe murmurs warningly, teasingly. “Falla respirare un attimo,” He doesn’t say, _she is new, she is still finding her place_. He doesn’t say, _this is not the time,_ but Nicky hears it, the way he hears all of the things Joe does not say. Nicky doesn’t respond but the careless shift of his shoulders and the graceful gesture of a hand does enough to communicate his agreement. Sì, okay, not now, but later. He will let her breathe, let her find her feet, he will not rush her. 

Later, Joe agrees with a twitch of his own fingers, their silent conversation bouncing between them in the span of a heartbeat. 

Nile raises an eyebrow and looks between them. “And what,” she says pointedly, flicking her chopsticks back and forth between him and Joe, “was _that?_ ” Nicky does not have to look over to know that Joe is grinning, so he allows himself a small smile and busies himself with locating another piece of broccoli among his rice. 

“You’ll get used to it,” Andy says, apparently under no similar obligation to keep from rushing Nile into becoming one of them, to find her place alongside them. 

“Hmm,” is all Nile says, returning to her mapo tofu with a look Nicky cannot parse yet. He wishes she would push a little, but he imagines she sees herself as not quite belonging, not quite prepared to insert herself into their odd little family. 

“I think Andy is saying we are an acquired taste, beloved,” Joe says, his mouth a little full. 

“I think Andy is saying a thousand years is a long time to be stuck with us, amore mio,” Nicky challenges, because he is sure it is true. 

“I think Andy is saying that she’ll start fining for endearments again if you keep pushing her,” Andy adds with teeth bared in something that could have been a smile if it weren’t so clearly murderous. Joe laughs and offers up his egg roll in supplication. Andy collects it promptly with satisfaction. 

“My apologies, boss. You nearly made us paupers the last time.” 

“Us?” Nicky snarks, but he is laughing. 

“Us,” Joe insists, “What’s mine is yours.” 

“Why not just… not call each other the nicknames?” Nile asks, looking very much as if she is hiding a smile. Nicky cannot help but look at Joe, whose expression is a parody of confusion that goads Nicky into laughing aloud. 

“You cannot mean to suggest that I stop telling Nicolo he is the most beautiful man I’ve ever known? The greatest love of every life I will ever live? Whose very thoughts make music of the mundane and-” Nicky knows if he looks Joe in the eye that Andy will see precisely how charmed he is by Joe’s ridiculousness and he will never live it down. So instead he sips his wine and pretends very hard that he does not want to drag Joe’s face to his and kiss it - many times. 

“No, I meant stop calling him cutiepie in Italian,” Nile deadpans, “but, I mean, you do you.” Andy snickers, which sends the rest of them snorting into their drinks. 

The evening comes to a close with Andy disclosing the worst nicknames she’s heard from either of them over the past nine hundred or so years and Nicky is delighted even as he is hideously embarrassed by how much she has heard of their sweet nothings - oh God, _especially_ in their two hundreds, they were _relentless_ in their two hundreds. But Nile is laughing and demanding translations from Andy for the untranslatable bits and Joe is pretending to consider trying some of them out again, insisting that they have come back into vogue - and it is very good. It is almost perfect. 

Without Booker their little family is not whole, he knows, but Nile’s presence begins to mend their frayed edges, even with her uncertainty. Nicky is sure that there will be a day with all of them together again. 

The next morning dawns early but it is Nicky’s turn for breakfast and Joe hates to lounge in bed if Nicky is not there to keep him warm. Andy is gone but they knew it was a possibility - a Sunday morning run, a meeting with Copley, exchanging emails with old contacts: all were on the agenda for their fearless leader. 

Nicky makes omelettes, learning that while he and Joe both like onions and peppers and mushrooms in theirs, Nile likes spinach and tomatoes most and is solidly anti-green pepper. 

He does pretty well, if he says so himself. Thus, he is entirely consumed in consuming his own hard work that he does not see the conversation coming until it has begun. 

“Andy says God doesn’t exist,” Nile says, and somehow her tone is not accusing. Nicky thinks that’s very generous of her, thinks that in her shoes he may not have been as kind. His lips twitch into a smile and he feels more than hears Joe shift next to him, knowing without looking that his love is amused. 

“It is, perhaps, important to Andy that God does not exist,” Joe suggests, gently. Nicky huffs a laugh, but he does not disagree. Nile raises an eyebrow and does that wonderful stare of hers again and he lifts a shoulder. 

“Monotheism was less of a… a-” Nicky trails off and raises his eyebrows at Joe. 

“A thing,” Joe finishes inelegantly, but accurately, “when Andy was out in the world. She’s seen many religions come and go. Temples built and burned. Gods and goddesses rise and fall.” 

“She was worshipped as one,” Nicky adds. “I’m sure that leads to the loss of shine to it all.” 

“But you both believe in God,” Nile says, her voice making it not a question and Nicky is pleased her observational skills are so good - and also that perhaps he will get to talk theology with someone who is not Joe, whom he loves dearly, but whose mind he knows as well as his own. 

“We were men of faith a thousand years ago,” Joe points out idly, “It would be easy to fall away from something that belonged to a life so distant from our own.” 

“But you haven’t, not really,” Nile pushes back. “Nicky, I’ve seen you pray, and Joe doesn’t eat pork and-” 

“I don’t like pork,” Joe corrects, “Imagine, more than nine hundred years and never accidentally eating pork? You’ve seen me drink, though.” 

“Nowadays, Joe’s system of beliefs is much more, eh, spiritual?” Nicky offers, glancing at Joe who tilts his head side to side as if to say, close enough. 

“As far as I’m concerned, there is a force, there is fate or destiny or _something_ ,” Joe waves his hands about, as if to encircle the entire universe in his gesture. “There is something grander than us and perhaps, if we’re lucky, a grand design as well. We should do well by others and care for those who cannot care for themselves. I’ve also been known to pray, occasionally. And,” he raises a finger, “I’m entirely sure that Paradise exists. There _is_ a Heaven.” Nile opens her mouth and Nicky knows she is going to ask how he can be so sure, but she closes it promptly and shakes her head. 

“Heaven exists because Nicky exists,” she guesses dryly and Joe points at her, grinning. 

“Got it in one.” Nile doesn’t roll her eyes but everything about her expression and body language says she’s doing it in her mind. 

“And Nicky is not really Catholic anymore, not by any real measure,” Joe continues, as if he hadn’t firmly derailed them himself. “I mean, what makes a Catholic a Catholic? No pope-” Nicky makes a face, “And no confession.” 

Nicky folds his arms and shakes his head. “Confession gets messy when you end the lives of as many people as we do.” 

“But you talk to God on your own,” Nile persists and Nicky nods. 

“We chat,” Nicky admits. “Somewhat regularly.” Nile watches him with careful eyes and Nicky wonders if she’s disappointed in his answers. 

“Did you get your answers?” Nile asks and Nicky finally grins. 

“Well, God and I still talk, so I suppose I heard what I needed to hear.” They fall into silence for a while after that, cleaning up breakfast dishes and clearing the table. The soft productive quiet is broken only by Nile’s voice, minutes later. 

“I miss the singing,” Nile says wistfully. She’s washing the last of the utensils and staring at them even though it is clear she does not see them. She is lost in a memory that Nicky is sure reminds her of what she has had to lose and all that she has left behind. She’s had her days of anger, though usually Andy fields those, taking Nile out for long sparring bouts and hard training until exhaustion wins over all else. But the days of sadness, of grief and loss, are there for Nicky and Joe to handle and try and offer what comfort they can - but not for the first time, he wishes Booker were here to understand what Nicky knows he never will. 

While Nile remembers singing, Nicky remembers the chanting, remembers the rumbling, thunderous, soaring call of voices raised in worship. He remembers the warmth of standing shoulder to shoulder in church, of the crudely constructed altars of the clerics in the Crusades, of the relief of confession and the smell of the oils. “I understand,” he says simply and she smiles at him. 

They finish cleaning and Nicky is considering finding the book he is slowly paging through when Nile speaks again. “Would you come to church with me?” Nile asks, leaning back against the now empty sink. “There’s one a few blocks away that I think does a ten AM.” There is something in the set of her jaw, the tilt of her chin, that tells Nicky this is not an idle request. 

“I’d be honored,” he says honestly. 

Joe waves them off when they ask him along, says that an empty house is his chance for a long shower singing at the top of his lungs and a football game Nicky does not want to watch. Nicky rolls his eyes and presses a kiss to Joe’s temple. “Do not have too much fun without me,” he murmurs, and relishes Joe’s surprised laugh. 

“Never, cuore mio.” Joe crosses his heart solemnly. Nile says Nicky doesn’t have to change and so they collect their wallets and keys and then they’re off. 

Nile is right and there is a tiny white church with a bright red door several blocks from their current safe house. The sign out front proclaims itself to be St. John’s Episcopal with both nine _and_ ten AM services. “I grew up Episcopalian,” Nile explains as they climb the small set of steps to the church doors. “Y’know, Protestant-ish, Catholic-lite,” she says with a smile. “Maybe some of this will be familiar to you.” 

Nicky doesn’t point out that he’s not sure he’s ever actually attended a mass in English, but simply follows her in. 

The church is small but bustling. It looks older - for a given definition of the word - but clean and well cared for. What draws his eyes are the tall windows, stretching high to the ceiling, each letting in a flood of clean light across the white painted walls and pews. Nile and he are greeted warmly and handed programs but not interrogated, for which he is thankful, and they slouch their way into the very back pew. 

To be honest, Nicky doesn’t pay much attention to the service. Instead he watches Nile. He does not know what to expect, other than singing (and lo, is there singing!) but he senses that for the first few minutes, Nile is going through the motions, letting muscle memory carry her. She sits and she stands for prayers but she murmurs only a few alongside the congregation. She pages mindlessly through the hymns. He wishes he could find the words necessary, to help her find what she is looking for, but instead he offers to hold the hymnal and stays quiet. 

But the longer the service goes on, the more he sees Nile’s shoulders relax, her breathing deepen. She sings more loudly and recites each prayer with something closer to confidence. She laughs at a joke delivered by the Reverend Mother during the sermon, and lights up at the appearance of a children’s choir. Nicky is relieved, to say the least. Church has not been his vehicle for God in many years, but he is glad that Nile finds something familiar and warm and real in the pretty little church. 

The time for communion comes and Nile tugs on Nicky’s arm. “I cannot,” he murmurs, “We don’t belong-” 

Nile rolls her eyes. “Anyone who’s baptized can take communion here. I assume they did that a thousand years ago?” 

Nicky doesn’t remember his baptism, but he remembers feeling smaller than he ever had, presented with something grander than he’d ever known. He acquiesces and follows Nile down the aisle, watching the swift, purposeful movements of the congregation, shifting and pausing and moving to allow each member to line up at the altar rail and take communion. 

When it is their turn, it is the work of seconds to kneel, lay his hands on the altar rail - right over left - and wait with bowed head. He can feel the heat of Nile's shoulder nearly pressed to his and there is a soft hymn playing underneath everything but he cannot parse the words. He bites his lip and tries to sift through what it is he is feeling. It is not so much God's presence he feels here but an echo of what it is to be around the dinner table with the others - the warmth of a life shared, the assurance of comfort offered. Communion in its purest form is connection and he wonders at the ties between all the lives in this little building, including his and Nile’s. 

“The body of Christ, the bread of Heaven,” a short older woman murmurs softly as she places a wafer in his outstretched hands - and Nicky finds himself tearing up slightly. He blinks them away as he is gently fed and warmly blessed, the sour sweet taste of the wine calling to memory nights camped under dark skies with Joe’s arms around him, of resting after a long day of sparring with Booker and Andy, laughing beside a swiftly curling fire. As he stays kneeling and feels the warmth of the morning sun on his face, he wishes he could tell everyone around him that he was once alone and thought himself beyond the reach of God and love and anyone and that he couldn’t have known that there would be hymns and devotion and family in his future but that there _are,_ there _is,_ and that he is so tremblingly grateful to be where he is. He thinks he is alone in this fervor, simply offering up another prayer that he must eventually abandon - but he is startled by Nile slipping her hand into his and squeezing, as if to say, _you are not alone._ In the work of a moment, his silence no longer chokes him. They bow their heads and breathe in the quiet, praying together. 

Nile crosses herself after the woman moves on and he follows, before standing and retreating to their pew, the faces of the congregation blurring together as he passes them by. They settle in, seated closer together than they were before and there is a heartbeat of silence before Nile leans her head on Nicky’s shoulder for a brief moment, letting out a long sigh. “I’ve missed this,” she murmurs. “Thanks for coming with me.” 

“Of course,” Nicky says steadily, though his heart is anything but. 

There is more singing and several more prayers - some of which Nicky absolutely knows in languages born far, far away. Nicky is sad to see the service come to an end, but he stands with the rest of the congregation when prompted. “Send us now into the world in peace,” the Reverend Mother asks of God for them when she closes the service and Nicky can’t help but feel a little lighter. 

Nile has them quickly escape before they can be invited to something called a ‘coffee hour’ and so they are back out on the street moments later, admiring the tiny church in the midday sun. 

“That was quite nice,” Nicky says simply, watching as the congregation files out, little families all chatting and laughing, lives tied together. “Different, but very nice.” 

“Good,” Nile says firmly, looping her arm in his and tugging him along. “Lunchtime now.” 

They find a cafe after a few more blocks and they talk of nothing terribly important as they are seated and order and eventually receive their food. There is a comfortable silence between them before Nile breaks it. 

“Why do you still believe?” Nile asks, and Nicky hums, idly picking through his salad for another tomato. She does not know yet that this is the sound he makes when he is thinking through his words carefully, but he imagines she will shortly - she is too good at watching them, at observing, for it to escape her notice - and he is too eager for her to know them to put forth any pretense. 

He loves her already, he thinks. Her strength and stubbornness remind him of Andy, but she is also playful and funny and sensitive, which brings to mind Joe; her irreverence and intelligence makes him think often of Booker - and then of course, there is a steel core of honor and duty and compassion and grace that is all Nile. She is easy to love, he thinks. 

“What is it to take communion?” he asks in return. “Why do you do it?” He waves his fork in the air, “Is it ritual? The comfort of tradition? Or is there more for you?” He sinks his teeth into a carrot and wishes Joe were here so he could steal his cucumbers from him. 

Nile rolls her eyes. “That is such a parent move by the way - to answer a question with a question.” Nicky scratches his nose, deciding silence is the better part of valor. 

She huffs, but then settles her stare on him and he is pleased to realize that this is how _she_ thinks, her mind whirring quickly, her gaze steady and penetrating as she considers her options carefully. “It’s tradition,” she points out. “But also sharing in something. In love, maybe. It’s like a family dinner with God, I think,” she says, in that frank way that Nicky likes so much, how she cuts to the core of an idea like Andy with her labrys. 

“Yes,” he agrees delightedly, pointing at her with his fork, “Precisely. A person cannot simply take communion on their own; you are touching hands with another, exchanging food and wine and all that that is symbolic of.” He waves a hand thoughtlessly. “My experience of God is much like that. Small, steeped in meaning, and,” he smiles a little, “shared.” He shrugs his shoulders. “I do not feel alone. I have not, not since becoming immortal. Not since God gave Joe to me. So, therefore, I believe.” He tilts his head and watches Nile watching him, taking in his words thoughtfully. “Do you feel alone?” 

Nile arches an eyebrow and he thinks she thinks that this is a test of some sort, but he just waits patiently until he sees her shoulders relax and her forehead crease as she considers. “Yes,” she says finally, meeting his gaze unflinchingly. 

Nicky offers her his hand across the table and she takes it. He squeezes it, once, twice, and says firmly, “You are not alone in that.” Nile’s smile is more a twitch of her lips than anything else and for a second there, Nicky sees Booker across from him, just as they met him so many years ago - so young and still new and perhaps lonelier than Nicky ever truly saw. Nicky wants better for Nile - perhaps so they can be better for Booker one day. 

“I believe in God because I do not know of greater proof than the desire to not be alone - the something in us that calls us to be with each other, and take care of each other and-” he pauses, not sure if he wants to push, but Nile finishes for him, 

“To love each other.” 

Nicky squeezes her hand again before letting it go. They are quiet for a moment which is only interrupted when the waiter returns to ask them if they want dessert. They instantly both ask to see the menu and grin when they each decide independently on tiramisu. When the waiter disappears, they are left with their utensils, drinks, and all the time in the world. 

“I would think that, after a thousand years, God wouldn’t seem…” Nile casts her gaze around the restaurant as she searches for a word, “intimidating? Magnificent? Holy?” 

“Mm, He is still unknowable,” Nicky points out. “Honestly, to be unknowable after nine hundred years is still very much worthy of awe, I would think.” 

“Fair. But even…” she trails off, uncertain, which is unlike her. Nicky sets his glass down and focuses on her face. “Even with all of this," she gestures between the two of them, “All these years behind you and ahead of you, filled with the kinds of loss and death that you usually only have to survive one lifetime of. Saying goodbye, endlessly. All of that, and you think He's still up there?” Nicky hears the unsaid, you think He did this to us? 

“People aren’t meant to be alone, Nile.” Nicky spreads his hands as if to say, I don’t make the rules. “To live like we do is to lose, to grieve, yes - but,” he holds up a finger in protest, “It is also to experience more than any other soul in existence. To see more love, more beauty-” 

“More pain,” she adds, and his lips lift in a shadow of a smile, because she is right. To have mourned the way they must, to have lost so many bright, beautiful lives along the endless path they walk - some days he is not sure how a heart can withstand so much loss. 

“More pain,” he agrees, “but then - more healing.” He lifts one shoulder loosely, raising his eyebrows. “More grace, then. And more forgiveness.” He pauses and thinks of Booker again. He knows Nile sees it, but he lets her look, wants her to know that there is space for absolution in this little family of theirs, space for mistakes and room for mercy. “And to be witness to that, to build love with your own hands, to find one another in this endless stretch of time and space - that’s holy, I think. But, hey,” he throws his arms out dramatically, shoulders up to his ears in a shrug, “What the hell do I know?” 

It makes her laugh, which is all Nicky really wanted. 

They walk home in the late afternoon sun together, their theological conversation set aside. Instead he is happy to tell any story that Nile demands of him, embellishing details that make her gasp and threaten to ask Joe for the truth when they get back. He is not worried because he knows Joe will back him up and Andy will pretend that there were actually twenty guards, not ten, and that dinner will devolve into poorly reenacted battles and shameless historical name dropping and that they will all take turns in building a place for Nile with them. 

Because they are not meant to be alone. 

**Author's Note:**

> the title of the fic comes from a dar williams song, 'i had no right.'
> 
> Translations: (apologies for these, i did my very best with the internet i was given! i will happily take corrections!)
> 
> Ashadu an la ilaha ila allah wa ashadu anna muhammadan rasul-ullah. - I bear witness that there is no deity but God and I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God.  
> Yurid allah minaa 'an naeisha. - God wants us both to live.  
> habibi - beloved  
> tesoro - treasure  
> Squisito. Non aggiungere nulla. - Exquisite. Don't add anything.  
> alhamdu-lillah - Praise be to God  
> mio piccolo prete - my little priest  
> Cazzo, cazzo, Joe - Joe, destati, cazzo! - Fuck, fuck, Joe - Joe, wake the fuck up!  
> Falla respirare un attimo. - Give her a moment to breathe.  
> cuore mio - dear heart, my heart  
> amore mio - my love
> 
> SO i have not written something in a very, very long time and i think this fic could have absolutely murdered me with an axe and thrown me out a skyscraper onto a car and that would have been that, if not for the incredible modernnature, to whom this fic is dedicated. she did the best friend equivalent of holding my hand as i rode a segway down a busy highway while weeping, telling me that i was "doing great, honey!" she's also responsible for any historical shit i managed to get right. (part 4 would not EXIST in any universe if not for her.) all the stuff i got wrong is my own damn fault. in conclusion, you're my person, bb! i love you!
> 
> an additional thank you to this fandom for being so incredible and beautiful since day one! this fic started as the +1 and then grew wildly out of control as i realized there was so much i wanted to say and so many amazing ideas and characterizations i wanted to engage with. (booker!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BOOKERRRR!!!!!!!) 
> 
> if you have questions or concerns or suggestions you can hit me up at tumblr @strictlybecca! happy to discuss my reasoning for literally anything in this fic, or just make new friends over the old guard!!!


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